


The Intern

by Wallyallens



Category: The Flash (Comics), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: AU, Gen, M/M, rewrite if Wally was an intern at STARLabs when Cisco joined, the sound and the fury flashback scenes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-03
Updated: 2015-08-03
Packaged: 2018-04-12 16:57:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4487448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wallyallens/pseuds/Wallyallens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Cisco Ramon goes to work at STARLabs, he isn't the only person - on his first day he meets new intern Wally West, and they both face the disapproval of Hartley Rathaway. Re-write of some of 'the sound and the fury' flashback scenes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Intern

**Author's Note:**

> AU. first time writing for CW Flash, but as usual I am ignoring canon. Pre-reboot Wally West because I gave up on nu52 Flash, so in CW verse I'm changing canon to: Barry Allen wasn't the only child Joe West ever adopted. Iris had an adopted brother - Rudy West. He is older & moved out at 16, before Barry came to live with them, but now his son, Wally, has gone to live with the West's (so he's still Iris' nephew) and has won an Internship to work at STARLABS.  
> Also, I haven't decided if Wally/Hartley is going to be a ship if I write more of this, so I've aged Hartley down in my version of canon to be 18 at this time, having become estranged from his family at a young age & being taken under Harrison Wells wing and working at STARLabs - Harrison is to Hartley what Joe is to Barry. He's young, arrogant, and sees Wells as the only father figure he has left, so is cold towards any threats to that.  
> Right, hopefully this makes sense - enjoy!

“Cool shirt.”

Cisco Ramon glanced up from the hands he was wringing together, knuckles occasionally popping and cracking, a half-nervous, half-excited habit his mother would tell him off for at every available opportunity if he was at home. Still, it was his first day at a new job – STAR Labs of all places, working for _Harrison Wells_ – and he had been waiting in the reception for ten minutes for his security clearance, so he figured he was allowed a nervous tick or two.

“Thanks,” Cisco said, smiling on instinct as his eyes found the source of the compliment: a red haired kid who was outwardly excited as he was internally, bobbing on the balls of his feet, impatient to move and practically crackling with electricity. He could only have been a teenager – 16 or 17 at Cisco’s guess. The Kid looked about as lost as he was, too, eyes flicking around and igniting every time someone walked towards them, only to have that fire stamped out as they walked past. It appeared they were both waiting for something. “I was worried about what to wear for my first day, so I figured you can’t go wrong with Star Wars.”

“Never,” the kid agreed. 

Cisco shrugged, rubbing a hand against the back of his neck. “I thought it might be a little, I don’t know . . . _odd_ for my first day, but I figured I’d start as I mean to go on. I’m not going to change who I am for a job or anything, frankly.”

“I respect that, bro,” the kid said, eyes shining with newfound admiration. He stepped back, leaning against the wall and tucking his hands behind him, shying away. “I mean, I can understand wanting to blend in as well – _high school_ , but what other people think shouldn’t stop you. I wouldn’t be here if it did.”

The dark haired man asked without asking. “And you’re here for . . .”

“I’m an Intern,” the kid gushed, spitting the words out proudly, but his cheeks were tinged pink. “I uh, entered a competition a few months ago. It was against a bunch of other kids in the state to win an internship here – just after school and summers, but it’s pretty cool.”

“Cool? That’s _awesome_ ,” Cisco grinned back at him, finding it easy. “I wish I could’ve done something like this when I was your age! But when I was your age, it was all _Dante_ this and _Dante_ that, I never stood a chance at even applying . . . which you didn’t want to know,” he shook his head. Rambling about his dysfunctional family. Nice one, Ramon. That’s not wierd at all. “I’m sorry.”

“Hey, no. I get it. A year ago, I wouldn’t have been able to either – I’m not from around here. Blue Valley boy,” the kid said with eyebrows pinched at the nose and head bobbing, and then he pointed to his own shirt with a smile which wasn’t half as bright as his earlier ones. It was a Blue Valley football jersey. Home was apparently a universal touchy subject then. “But since I moved to Central with my sort-of cousins, they’ve been really supportive. My parents wouldn’t even think of letting me enter something like this – any time I could be getting a job or helping around the house, that’s what they thought I should be doing – but here, everything is different. Central City’s . . . something else entirely.”

Cisco felt the edges of his mouth tug up again. That Central hometown pride – there was nowhere else like it, aside from maybe the ‘I survived Gotham’ mentality of the people from the city south of them. 

“It is that,” he agreed. “But apart from STARLabs? This city’s the same as any other. It’s pretty dull, I mean – what _ever_ happens in Central City?”

“Traffic,” Wally groaned miserably. “So. Much. Traffic. I can’t stand it – I’ve started walking everywhere, anything else is just so _slow_.”

Eyes bulging out as he nodded his head vehemently in agreement, Cisco’s hand flew about as he spoke. “I know, right? It’s ridiculous! No wonder everyone’s late to everything – I’m just glad I made it _here_ on time this morning.”

“Tell me about it.”

Cisco turned to the kid and held out a hand. “Cisco. Ramon.”

“Wally West,” the ginger kid replied, and took the hand Cisco had extended, shaking it a little too enthusiastically. The older man jumped at the touch, but laughed at Wally’s panicked face. “Sorry!”

Before Cisco could shrug him off, a suited lady approached them with a clinical smile which didn’t quite reach her eyes. The cool blues scanned them both critically, her nose twitching when she noticed their slightly unprofessional attire, but smoothed itself out in the blink of an eye, un-chipped nail polished fingers offering two lanyards.

“You’re both here to see Dr. Wells, correct?”

“Yes Ma’am,” Cisco bobbed his head in her direction, eyes lighting up. Aiming a smile at her, he received a twitch of lips which ranged more on uncomfortable than flirty and immediately stepped back, receiving the message. He knew he never stood a chance – but it never hurt to be polite, and who could blame a guy for trying? 

“Thanks,” Wally agreed as he took his lanyard, slinging it around his neck. His picture was upside down, not that he noticed or cared. 

“Then you’ll find him in the Cortex – just follow the signs. I believe he’s with Mr. Rathaway right now.”

On the name ‘Rathaway’, the receptionists tone changed almost unnoticeably. But Cisco had always had an ear for deflection, and heard the change in her tone as clear as a bell. He bit his bottom lip as him and Wally exchanged a glance before heading towards the Cortex. Whoever this guy was, the receptionist clearly didn’t like him. It wasn’t the most comforting thought; Cisco’s hands balled up again at his sides as he followed Wally through the concrete corridors, careful to mask the fact his guts were tying themselves in knots when the younger man glanced around in his direction. 

Chin up, Cisco. Don’t let them know you’re afraid.

Wally certainly wasn’t, or was exceptionally good at hiding it. Buzzing his way forward, he lead with his head and took strides which were too long for his legs, adding in a skipping step every few paces which left neither of his feet on the ground for a brief second. Feet racing faster than his head, Wally had to backtrack a few steps as they reached an intersection, his eyes not quite reading the sign in time and stumbling past the turn they needed to take before it registered, head shaking as he turned and ploughed in the right direction this time, tops of his ears redder than his hair. 

By the time they reached the Cortex, Wally’s eyes were wider than the moon and he held the same gravitational pull – his awe leaked out from him in every breath as he took in the space: computers shone like satellites, chemicals bubbled in glass beakers ethereally, and white coated people were the space debris pulled towards him as the young man took his first few steps into the room, Cisco at his heels. Heads turned, taking both of them in with a ripple of muttering, the expressions turned towards them ranging from curious to critical; as Wally stood in stunned amazement, Cisco turned up his head a fraction.

One man nodded towards a smaller room just off the main station they were standing in, and two heads – black hair and red – turned to see two figures seated at a small table in that room. Cisco squinted, noticing the trademark edge of Harrison Well’s glasses, and the profile of a second man. 

This was it. He had earned his place here – they both had. Now was just the seizing of the moment. _Carpe Diem_.

Another latin phrase met his ears as he loped towards the room, Cisco rubbing his hands against his jeans as he approached, hoping he wasn’t sweating too obviously, wanting to play it cool for now. It wasn’t any phrase he recognised, but as he and Wally approached, the younger man faltering slightly the nearer they got, his strides becoming shorter until he walked side by side with Cisco rather than leading, energy not so much draining as being restrained. They arrived in synch, Cisco tapping the frame of the door a few times to draw the attention of Dr. Wells and taking the responsibility without ever being asked to.

Leaning against the wall, Cisco peered into the room, aware of Wally’s body tensing next to him in apprehension. He prayed his voice to be steady. “Dr. Wells?”

“There they are,” the bespectacled man replied, pushing back from his game. There was a fallen king on his opponent’s side. Dr. Wells stood and approached them, Cisco stepping up into the room while Wally remained in the doorframe, silently watching the exchange. Dr. Wells shook Cisco’s hand. “Hartley, allow me to introduce to you, Cisco Ramon. Mr. Ramon here is one of the finest mechanical engineer’s I have ever seen.”

As the doctor spoke, Cisco felt his face warm as a smile stretched across it despite himself at the praise. It was still flighty, barely there in a nervous way, like he wanted to just blend in but couldn’t help the way his face lit up. The other man in the room sallowed at the exchange, face still with barely masked disapproval, which secured itself firmly onto his features when Dr. Well’s hand settled on Cisco’s back. 

Still unsure of himself, Cisco’s arms hung awkwardly at his sides as his gaze fell to the ground, smile refusing to leave his face despite the need to push it down rising in his stomach. He gushed, “Wow, I can’t believe Harrison Wells said that about me.”

“And _this_ -” Dr. Wells turned to Wally, who was still standing outside the room, lips pressed together and eyes defensive at being addressed. When he was spoken to, however, he glanced up in an almost embarrassed way, but stepped up nonetheless as the famous scientist praised him with as much enthusiasm as he did Cisco. “Is Wallace West, our newest Intern. He won the competition out of all the students of Keystone or Central schools, and has quite a sharp mind.”

“It's not anything, really,” Wally blushed, rubbing the back of his neck. He met Dr. Wells eye for just a second before glancing away, refusing to look at the other man, silently judging them, he could tell, and settling his gaze on Cisco instead, who subtly gave him a nod of encouragement. “And please, it’s just Wally. I’m nothing special.”

Harrison Wells waved a hand in his direction, dismissing the statement without words. He turned back to the still seated man with a look of pride, like he was showing off his newest experiments and announced, “They should prove to be invaluable members of your team, trust me.”

“ _You_ I trust,” Hartley said. He was staring Cisco and Wally down, but blatantly addressing his words to Dr. Wells, everything in his posture screaming on an arrogance that was as hardwired into his DNA as his brown hair and need for glasses, which rested perfectly on his face over hazel eyes, cold eyes, which judged and calculated like a magnifying glass over your flaws. Wally felt naked under that gaze, and felt like he’d escaped execution when the man tilted his head towards Cisco instead. “I don’t foresee myself trusting someone who showed up to his first day of work at a billion dollar research facility wearing a T shirt that says ‘Keep Calm and Han shot first’”.

Cisco’s smile died halfway through the other man’s words. It was a reverse of the mocking smirk that appeared on Hartley’s face, half of his lip upturned as Cisco’s fell on his face, eyes that held a nervous hope in the aftermath of Dr. Wells’ welcome dimming and shattering at the remark. Suddenly feeling stupid, despite having worked his ass off for years to be standing there, Cisco resisted the urge to bolt, eyes twitching from side to side as the words rung into silence, waiting for a reaction. They couldn’t fire him, could they?

“What’s wrong with that?”

The voice that spoke next was youthful, but the carefully controlled tone held an edge of anger, crackling just below the surface of the otherwise innocent words, too low to be as innocent as they sounded, his voice holding the quality of thunder from a storm it was too late to outrun. 

Cisco glanced up to see Wally was no longer averting his gaze, the temporary shyness from their entrance evaporated just like it had when they had spoken earlier. It seemed that initially, Wally West was tentative when meeting new people, doubting himself, but erupted as himself as soon as he knew where he stood. Now, he stood up for his new friend, posture stiff again, back straight and proud as his eyes bored holes into Hartley, jaw locked and hands tensing and relaxing at his sides. A coiled snake would look less tense than the tiny ginger teen at that moment.

“What Cisco chooses to wear has no bearings whatever on his ability, or his work ethic,” Wally reasoned, not blinking. “It means nothing. It has no effect on his education or mind or achievements. Why does that matter at all?”

At the defence, so angry and heartfelt from a person he’d just met that morning, Cisco’s head snapped up, eyes re-igniting. The sadness was gone from his face, replaced by an almost smug feeling that he’d already gained an ally – a _friend_ – here at STARLabs. If Hartley was as determined to give him a hard time as his cold shoulder suggested, he would need all the friends he could get. 

“Huh,” Harrison Wells interrupted before Hartley could reply. He was looking over at Cisco’s shirt, but kept Wally in his peripheral vision, just in case. “Would you give us a minute please, Cisco and Wally.”

“Yes, Sir,” Cisco replied. Putting a hand on Wally’s arm to drag the teenager along with him, Cisco felt the tension melt as the younger man turned, not saying anything to either man as he left the room. Once they were moving, Cisco pulled his jacket closer around himself self-consciously. It covered more of the shirt, but it was still there, burning holes into his chest.

“Don’t,” Wally said, noticing the movement as soon as they left the room. He reached out to pull the jacket apart again, looking up at everyone else in the lab with a glare that simply dared them to say anything else before turning back to Cisco. “Don’t hide who you are, not for assholes like him. They’re not worth it.”

A dark head turned up, meeting his eyes as he touched a hand to the red fabric of the shirt. From that day on, he wore it and anything else which expressed himself as an individual to work like a badge of honour.

“Thank you.”

*

Hartley’s attitude towards them didn’t improve much – or in fact, at all – as the day progressed. But this was work, and Wells “had a feeling”, so he led the two new employees around the complex later that day. They had just finished a tour of the entire building, given in as little detail as Hartley felt he could get away with as he walked back towards the Cortex with long strides, not caring that the two trailed behind, head not turning to check on them once.

Walking back into the room, Cisco glanced at Wally in mutual appreciation. “Yo, this place is so dope.”

“What a coincidence, we were thinking of making ‘Yo this place is so dope’ our new slogan,” Hartley’s derisive tone commented from ahead as he sauntered on, but Wally didn’t need to see his face to picture the sneer there. He rolled his eyes, tired of the treatment. Before he could call him out on it again however, Cisco spoke.

“If you’re so convinced Dr. Wells made a mistake in hiring us, why don’t you try proving it to him?”

Hartley turned at the words, lips drawn into a thin line as they all came to a halt in the middle of the room: him on one side, Cisco and Wally on the other.

Impressed by his friend’s words, Wally’s lips twisted themselves into a smirk he tried to hide by raising a hand to his chin, but Hartley’s glance fixed on him. Red eyebrows twitching upwards to re-affirm the challenge being laid down, Wally shrugged expressively and moved his hands into his pockets, waiting. 

Hartley’s head tilted to one side. If they wanted a challenge, he'd give them one. Twin lazer beams focused on Cisco, singling him out as the target as he questioned, “Magnetic flux is measured by what?”

“Hall effect pickup,” Cisco answered.

“The dual of a parallel RC Circuit?”

“Series RL Circuit,” Cisco replied with more confidence this time, crossing his arms competitively. “I can go all day, pal.”

Biting the inside of his bottom lip in defeat, Hartley turned to Wally instead. “What is meant by ‘Absolute Expansion’?”

Wally blinked a few times, answering after half a second. “The true expansion of a liquid with temperature, but with the expansion of the container in which the volume of liquid is measured taken into account.” 

“Electric Field Strength?”

“The quantitative expression of the intensity of an electric field at a particular location.”

Hartley’s eyes narrowed. He paused, expression showing he was trying to conceive something harder than the questions which had preceded it, and he wanted them to know it, savouring the second of anticipation in Wally’s green eyes. “What are the preconditions for an electrostatic discharge?”

“ _Lightning_?” Wally recognised the disguised words, knowing Hartley had phrased the question to throw him off. He felt his face split into a grin, bearing his teeth; hands sliding out of his pockets and falling to his sides in a relaxed manner, he rolled on the balls of his feet and answered. “One – the electrical potential between two spaces to be at a sufficiently high level; B-” He changed the system, just to twist the knife. “– a medium of some kind to obstruct the equalisation of the opposite charges.” 

The sound of hands slapping together attracted all of their attentions away, Wally and Hartley breaking eye contact for the first time in a minute. A small brunette approached them, the look on her face both kind and victorious at the same time as she turned to the quizmaster.

“Hartley, you have met your match,” she said to him. The tone was light, but the words were anything but – Hartley seethed in her direction as the lady offered her hand first to Cisco, then to Wally, her smile becoming genuine and welcoming when it landed on them. “I'm Dr. Caitlin Snow; it is very nice to meet you.”

“Cisco Ramon, nice to meet you.”

“Wally West, ditto.”

The bite in her voice grew bolder when she turned back to her co-worker, “And just ignore Hartley – we all do.”

“Tell your boyfriend I need the specs on the synchatron by end of day,” the glasses-clad man replied, last three words ground out. He hadn’t so much as flinched at her previous words, a look of resignation on his face, but relished giving orders in response, letting it bite through his cold professionalism façade. 

“It actually _is_ the end of Ronnie’s day, we are leaving early” Caitlin held a finger in his direction to announce, but turned back to Cisco and Wally more warmly. She told them proudly, “My boyfriend is taking me out of town for our one year anniversary.”

“Aw,” Cisco smiled in response, genuinely this time. It was different to the smiles he and Wally had been producing all day – grim exchanges behind Hartley’s back, forced ones to project a confidence neither of them felt, barely retained professionalism when talking to the colossal dickwad that had been assigned to showing them around. Now, his whole face relaxed into something brighter, warmth for the woman rising inside him. “That’s sweet.”

“Thanks,” Caitlin replied, waving and heading for the door with a click of heels. “I’ll see you guys on Monday.”

“See ya,” Cisco replied easily, watching her go. Twisting on the balls of hi feet, he waited for her to move out of sight, glad not everyone at STARLabs was born without the full spectrum of human emotion.

Beside him, Wally grinned and added helpfully, “Have fun!”

Then she was gone and they were left with the asshole – wait, elephant – in the room.

“She seems nice,” Cisco said as Caitlin’s back disappeared from view, twisting back to face his tormentor smoothly. Tired of taking it, his confidence slowly leaching back all day, he allowed his expression to show his own disapproval, eyebrows knitting together. “You don’t.” 

“And that’s putting it lightly,” Wally muttered darkly beside him. 

In response, Hartley simply turned up his nose a fraction at them again, judging through squinted eyes. The nonchalance was like a stench in the air, polluting any room Wells’ star pupil walked into and souring it, sucking out any trace of joy, now, it hung around them like a fog as he coldly observed.

“I give you a week. Max.” Hartley’s eyes flicked to Wally, turning and walking away without a second glance. “I give _him_ two.”

**Author's Note:**

> so if I made this a thing & maybe wrote more Intern!Wally at STARLabs, up to the accelerator explosion and then afterwards, with Rogue Hartley and the development of a friendship/relationship there (and Kid Flash, of course) would anyone be interested?  
> obviously a lot of dialogue was taken from 'the sound and the fury' episode of the Flash, so I don't own anything. And Hartley is such a dick and I love him for it. More things from his side if I decide to continue this AU.  
> Was I subtle enough with the foreshadowing around Wally? Call me Captain Obvious and make me a Rogue.  
> also, I've had a shit few days, say nice things.


End file.
